The Room
by aaliona
Summary: Bellatrix awoke after the Battle of Hogwarts in a small room with nothing but a door and some windows. Behind each, she finds everything she never wanted to see, but she cannot see the one person she truly needs: her master. Written for The One Line Competition 2


**I wrote this for The One Line Competition 2 on the HPFC. I had the idea, but the actual writing took me quite a while. Hopefully, the effort I put into it comes through to you.**

The locked door fascinated and puzzled her. It was the first thing she saw after waking up. Bellatrix was confused by it – confused by the whole situation – and reached up to open it, but, of course, it did not open. She sat back, trying to recall how she had gotten there.

The battle.

She had been fighting alongside her lord and his followers, trying to destroy the mud-tainted duelists they had encountered. Some Death Eaters had been quick about it and sent Killing Curse after Killing Curse, but Bellatrix was not like them. _Avada_ was too short for her taste; it was much more fun to make them suffer, if only a little. A quick C_rucio_ to her left and a _Sectumsempra_ to the Mudblood brat behind her had sent Bellatrix on her way, and she ran deeper into the castle. Her master swore that he would be the one to kill Potter, but she could only imagine how pleased he would be if she brought the boy to him.

Her task decided, Bellatrix stopped paying attention to those she was fighting. Torture was no longer required because it did not matter who she killed or how she killed them; she just needed Harry Potter.

A spell flew by and nearly hit her nose, knocking Bellatrix from her reverie. She whirled around to see who had dared to shoot at her. No one appeared to be around until a pink-haired woman stepped out from the rubble.

The woman sneered. "Hello, Aunt Bella."

"Nymphadora," she hissed, "my favorite mud-tainted relative. _Crucio!_" Her spell missed as the younger witch danced out of the way. "You have no idea how nice it is to see you. I always did want to be the one to finish you off!"

They jumped around, shooting every offensive spell in both witches' vocabularies. "Well," Bellatrix drawled, "I'm quite surprised at your skill, _niece_. I didn't think you could do that with the mud-tainted blood of your father's side. He's dead though, isn't he?" Her eyes narrowed as she thought of one last insult. Easily summoning more of her sarcastic drawl, she added, "Shame."

The younger woman shrieked, sounding extremely like her aunt in that moment. She leapt forward with another burst of energy, but Bellatrix quickly found her weakness: in Nymphadora's anger, she did not care about defense.

"_Imperio_!" she yelled, laughing at the panicked look in her niece's eyes just before the spell hit.

Nymphadora instantly calmed, although Bellatrix was unsure whether the girl had the ability to resist the curse.

"What shall we do with you?" she asked, grinning at Nymphadora as she forced her to shrug. "You don't care? Well, why not the Killing Curse? That would be fun, don't you think? I couldn't possibly cast it, though. I simply care too much for _family_." Bellatrix paced around the possessed witch as she spoke, noting how little she seemed to be fighting for control. "Best do it yourself." She flicked her wand in the violet-haired woman's direction, but Nymphadora's wand only raised a fraction of an inch.

"Excuse me," Bellatrix hissed. "I am in control here. Do as I say!"

The wand lifted another inch. Then Nymphadora squeezed her eyes shut and thrust the wand towards her aunt. "_Stupify_!"

"_Crucio_!"

Nymphadora screamed and her wand dropped to the ground from the force of the curse. "Fight, scream, do whatever," Bellatrix said just loud enough for her niece to hear. "It only makes it more fun for me." She then sent the Killing Curse, not out of mercy, for she had none, but because she was growing tired of Nymphadora. Finding Harry Potter sounded like a much better use of time.

Unfortunately, she had been called back by her master, forced to stop for a while. Once the fighting had restarted, Bellatrix gladly killed as many traitors and mudbloods as she could. Then that Weasley bitch had come at her out of nowhere, angry about her daughter's brush with death. They had dueled for a while, but Bellatrix distinctly recalled having the upper hand.

What had happened?

Most importantly, how had she gotten here?

Bellatrix figured she would have a better chance at figuring everything out if she took a look around. Since the door was locked, she peaked through the keyhole. On the other side, she found Harry Potter.

She shrieked in rage and threw herself against the door, but it wouldn't budge. "I'll get you!" she screamed, and rammed against the door for what seemed like hours. Eventually Bellatrix collapsed, panting heavily. After several moments, she peered through again to see what was happening on the other side.

Potter hadn't moved. He was sitting in what appeared to be a sitting room, with the Weasley brat next to him. In her quick glimpse before, Bellatrix had seen them talking. Now they were rather heatedly snogging. Snogging to the sound of her screams? It didn't seem quite in the noble boy's usual persona. Maybe he couldn't hear her.

To test her theory, Bellatrix screamed a few insults at the couple, threatening them and their mud-tainted, traitorous future children. They said nothing.

She sat back at this revelation. Why would they keep her locked away in a house? Bellatrix could easily escape, and the sound block meant that they would have to come inside her little prison in order to find out that she had done so. Wanting to learn as much as she could before escaping, she returned to the keyhole, eye glued to the room. Bellatrix watched in disgust as the "heroes" made love and watched as Weasley redressed and left. Potter sat on the couch in a stupor for quite some time. Later, he stood and Bellatrix prepared herself to have nothing left to look at.

Instead, her point of view moved as Potter did, taking her into the next room with him. "Where'd his little girlfriend go?" she wondered aloud. The scene through the keyhole blurred instantly and changed to a kitchen. In it stood Weasley, fixing dinner with her back to Bellatrix.

Well, that was certainly curious. Could she do that with anyone? Could she just skip around in others' lives?

"Cissy Malfoy," she said quietly. During the battle, Bellatrix had been forced to watch as her only loyal sister walked away, breaking that loyalty and taking away her only nephew. Would she truly be alone when she broke out of this prison?

The room through the keyhole swirled again, and Bellatrix saw her sister sitting at the desk in her study, scratching away with a quill. While she couldn't read the writing, Bellatrix waited until Narcissa folded the envelope and placed her husband's name in large, clear letters on the outside. She wondered where Lucius was, and quickly found her answer as Narcissa gave the letter to an owl and said, "Take this to Azkaban."

So her brother-in-law was back in Azkaban. She really wasn't surprised; Lucius' oily grasp on the world had finally slipped after he'd been caught by the ministry. Her lord had helped her escape that disaster.

Suddenly Bellatrix wanted nothing more than to see him. It was of the upmost importance that she see her lord, even if Potter had won the war.

"My master," she whispered, and watched greedily as the swirling fog returned. However, it never changed from that.

Bellatrix sat back on her heels, unsure how long she'd been waiting for the picture to clear. Where was her lord? Why wasn't he showing up? She sat there in complete stillness as she pondered, before the terrible answer occurred to her.

"My lord's grave," she whispered, shaking in fear at what she might see. Instantly the swirling stopped and she saw a small plaque on the ground, nothing more. Pressing herself close enough to the keyhole to leave marks on her face, Bellatrix strained to make out the writing on the plaque.

_Tom Marvolo Riddle_

_Love overcomes all, and only love can set us free_

Bellatrix screeched and threw her arms against the door, hoping it would cave under her rage. Love? _LOVE!_ Her master did not care for love, merely lust. And that had never set him free. Power had been his only concern, the only thing he'd ever really wanted. That was the worst gravestone Bellatrix had ever seen.

Potter must have chosen it, she decided. It was to remind him and others what his precious Dumbledore had believed above all else. Love conquers. She'd never heard such lies.

After sitting on the ground for longer than she'd had patience for in the past, Bellatrix turned and finally noticed the window behind her, veiled behind thick, black curtains. She stood slowly and moved carefully over to them. Although she had been eager to see through the door, it had crumbled her world, telling her that her lord was no more.

Her hand moved slowly to the curtains. As she touched them, Bellatrix hesitated. What if she was about to find something worse than her master's death? She took a deep breath and yanked them open.

Beyond the window she saw faces—people drifting along, as if using a hovering charm. At first, the faces meant nothing; they were just people wandering through a blank space. Then she started to notice an eerie familiarity to them. She had seen these people before, had met each of them, if only briefly. None of them could be placed, however, until she saw her niece.

Nymphadora Tonks looked just as distant and unfocused as the rest, but then she turned her head, locking eyes with Bellatrix. Through the glass, Bellatrix saw the ghostly being smile and open her mouth. The glass should have been too thick for sound to travel through it, but as Nymphadora's lips moved, the whisper reached her.

"Bellatrix Druella Black."

She had not been Bella Black in years, but the shock at hearing such a mocking tone from a dead being frightened her. Bellatrix did not scare easily, but something about her niece's tone chilled her.

The crowd of beings turned at Nymphadora's words, as though they had been looking for her. "Bellatrix." "Lestrange." "Bella." "Bellatrix Lestrange." "Black."

As the whispers continued, Bellatrix stared wide-eyed as more and more names linked in with faces. That was Arcturus Jugson, who had messed up badly in a raid during her master's first reign. His son had joined soon after, unaware that his father's killer was actually on "his side." Over there was the first Muggle Bellatrix had tortured after getting out of Azkaban.

Soon the voices became too much for her to bear. No voice spoke above a whisper, but they piled on top of each other. They said nothing but her name, whatever they had known her as. She heard the voices of those she had tortured and killed, and some of them she had never heard before.

Bellatrix collapsed to the ground, holding her hands over her ears to block out the noise. The whispers seemed to increase tenfold at this, and she began to cry.

Crying was a sign of weakness; it was as bad as love. Bellatrix could not remember the last time she had cried. As a typical pureblood girl, she had been taught pride. Above all else, purebloods were proud, and Bellatrix was the perfect pureblood.

Eventually she forced herself to her feet and stumbled towards the window. If she could just stop the faces…

As the curtains closed, the voices ceased abruptly, leaving Bellatrix with a sweetening sense of relief. She leaned against the wall and came to a startling conclusion.

This was her own personal Hell.

Bellatrix was dead; she'd lost that battle with the Weasley woman, and now she had to pay the price for all her sins.

Soon after, she also realized that she could not sleep. After having spent an endless time exploring every crevice of the small room for a way out, Bellatrix tried to rest. She stretched out on the floor and closed her eyes. Although she stayed that way for quite a while, no sleep came. Hours passed – or so she thought, since there was no way for her to track time. When she finally gave up, Bellatrix resumed her search of the room. It may have been Hell, and it may have been eternal punishment, but she would get out.

No matter how long it took, she would not remain trapped here.

**I looked high and low, but I couldn't find Bellatrix's middle name. Since it seems to the trend in pureblood families to give a parent's forename to the oldest (especially the Blacks), I went with Druella. It's not an overly big deal, but there's the reasoning.**

**I hoped you enjoyed this. :) Remember, reviews are a wonder, even if you just want to tell me exactly how twisted you now think my mind is. It would be appreciated since I'm not entirely sure anymore.**


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